I will send word when I know more about the situation here.
Your ever-loving daughter,
Evelyn
X
Enclosed letter from Amandine Morel to Will Elliott
1st May, 1915
127 Rue Chanterelle, Paris, France
Mon cher Will,
I hope you are well and that these few lines find you safe. As you will see from the address, I have returned to Paris.
I know this will come as a shock, but I am pregnant, Will, and there is no doubt the child is yours. There is no place for a pregnant nurse at the Front so I secured dismissal and returned to Paris to stay with my mother.
Ours was only a brief romance but I sometimes feel I know you better than I have known any man. We threw ourselves into passion, did we not? I will never forget how you held me, so tenderly, or how you whispered to me of love. I did not dare to whisper it in reply, but I cherish our time together.
I do not expect marriage. I understand the differences between us make anything more than our brief romance impossible, but I had to share the news of our child. A child born from love is the most wonderful product of war. Our futures lie in this child’s hands. Should I write again when the baby is born? If you do not wish to know more, please tell me and I will not contact you again. I understand this is difficult for you in your position.
Paris is changed, and the journey was arduous. Soldiers questioned me at every town. I hardly recognise the city of my birth. Refugees line the streets, desperate for a loaf of bread. I am happy and full of gratitude to be away from the worst of it, here on the outskirts.
I must tell you, mon cher William, je suis amoureuse de toi. I am in love with you. How quiet my days are without you. Your songs and good humour gave me more pleasure than I can say.
I wish you well, mon amour, and pray for your safety.
Amandine
Letter from Charles Abshire to Thomas
7th October, 1918
London, England
Dear fellow,
I am forwarding a letter, addressed to you, that appears to have been lost in the mail. It was written by Miss Evelyn Elliott during December 1915 and recently made its way back to her home in Richmond. Her mother brought it to the office here as she wasn’t sure how to get it to you.
It boggles the mind to think about the circuitous route it has taken to finally reach you, but it finds its home at last.
I hope you are well, dear boy. There’s talk the war is drawing to a close at last. We are all cautiously optimistic here.
Godspeed.
Charles Abshire
Unsent letter from Evie to Thomas
25th December, 1915
Richmond, England
Happy Christmas, my dear Thomas,
I am sitting here beside the fire, warming my toes, and I find myself imagining you are here beside me, warming yours. I have worried about your toes ever since you wrote to me about them last year. So here we are, sitting together in my imagination on Christmas Day and it is the most natural thing in the world. You and me and a belly full of roast goose! What could be more perfect?
There is something I must tell you, Thomas, although it scares me to do so. Nevertheless, I don’t know what else to do other than to write it all down because what good are our emotions and feelings locked away inside us? They must be seen and heard, felt and known.
The thing is, I am in love with you, Tom. Madly and stupidly. Perhaps I always have been. Perhaps, if I’d looked closer, paid more attention, I would have recognised the signs sooner. It took a war and hundreds of miles to make me see how very dear you are to me, Thomas Harding. You’ve always been there, haven’t you? Always. Except now, when I long for you to be here with all my heart, you are not.
Do I dare to believe that you might love me in return? You haven’t given me any reason to think it, so I must content myself with imagining it is so. I can see a future stretch out before us, like paint in water, swirling and dancing. Might we have children? Happiness? Companionship into old age? I imagine we have a little apartment in Paris where we like to spend our summers and Christmases. We can see the Eiffel Tower from the balcony. Perhaps you will ask me to marry you at the very top. I will, of course, say yes!
You see why I like to write, don’t you. I can weave a story from the thinnest of fabrics. I can weave a story when there isn’t even one to tell. At least, not yet.
So, now you know.
I love you, Tom Harding. I love you, I love you, I love you.
Last night, I looked at the stars and I thought of you doing the same.
Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when I shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
Now that I have finally found the courage to write these words, I do not know if I have the courage to post them to you. I cannot bear to think that my feelings will come as an unwelcome surprise. I hate to think of you reading this with alarm, uncertain as to what to do next. I can almost hear you: “Evie Elliott—in love with me?”
I have to be brave, and believe that you will read my words and feel only joy to know that my heart belongs to you.
Dearest, it snowed a little just now. I sat at the window and watched the flakes tumble from the sky. I opened the window and let the flakes land on the paper. They—and my heart—are my Christmas gift to you.
Happy Christmas, my love.
Always,
Evie
XXX
Telegram from Nurse Rose to Thomas
12TH OCTOBER 1918
TO: LT. THOMAS HARDING, 10TH RIFLES, AMIENS, FRANCE
SENT: 14:47 / RECEIVED: 15:33
EVIE ELLIOTT GRAVELY ILL. SHE ASKS FOR YOU. PLEASE COME SOONEST. ROSE BLYTHE
From Rose Blythe to Thomas
12th October 1918
Base Hill, Rouen, France
Dear Thomas,
Please see enclosed a short note from Evelyn. I am with her here. She is very sick, Tom. She insisted I take down her words and send them to you.
Sincerely,
Rose Blythe
Dictated letter from Evie to Thomas
Tom,
I am very sick, and I’m afraid. This disease weakens me with every hour that passes. I love you. I love you so much, my darling. E
Telegram from Nurse Rose to Evie’s mother
12TH OCTOBER 1918
TO: CAROL ELLIOTT, POPLARS, RICHMOND, LONDON SW
SENT: 09:23 / RECEIVED: 10:45
YOUR DAUGHTER EVELYN VERY ILL. PRAY FOR HER. I AM WITH HER NIGHT AND DAY. NURSE ROSE BLYTHE.
Telegram from Thomas to Evie
12TH OCTOBER 1918
TO: EVELYN ELLIOTT, WAAC, ROUEN, FRANCE, 0 ROSE BLYTHE.
SENT: 10:55 / RECEIVED: 11:15
SECURED EMERGENCY LEAVE. I AM A FOOL. I AM COMING, MY DARLING! WAIT FOR ME! PLEASE, GOD. YOU HAVE MY HEART. TOM.
From Rose Blythe to Alice Cuthbert
13th October, 1918
Rouen, France
Dear Miss Cuthbert,
I am with a dear friend of yours, Evelyn Elliott. I am sorry to tell you that Miss Elliott has fallen gravely ill with the Spanish Flu. She is feverish and struggling to hold on but she begged me to send word to you to tell you she loves you dearly and that she wishes you the happiest of lives with your doctor.
I am so sorry to have to send these words to you. The disease is rampant here, as I believe it is throughout much of Europe. That so many survived the years of war only to be struck down at the last by a strain of influenza is especially cruel.
I will stay with Miss Elliott until the end, and hope you will join me in praying for her.
Sincerely,
Rose Blythe
From Thomas to Rose Blythe
13th Oct
ober, 1918
Rose,
They won’t let me in. I begged your colleague to bring this note to you. Can you speak to your superior or someone on my behalf? I’ve scaled the fence around the back, but was caught. I desperately need your help. Please, Rose. I must see her. I beg you.
Tom
From Rose Blythe to Thomas
13th October, 1918
No, Tom. It isn’t safe. You must say your goodbyes another way. I am so sorry.
Rose
From Thomas to Evie
13th October, 1918
My darling girl,
I am a mess of tears and regret, of utter devastation. I tried to see you but was prohibited by the quarantine. I raged at the blockade like a madman—three men had to hold me back. I don’t care if I contract the disease. God in heaven, Evelyn Maria Constance Elliott, I am nothing without you. Nothing!
Your last letter broke my heart and what a stubborn idiotic fool I was not to reply to you instantly. My stupid pride wouldn’t allow it.
Damn it, Evie. All this time I didn’t realise, I swear I didn’t know. Yet it is so clear to me now. And then Abshire forwarded a letter from you, written at Christmas 1915. It was lost these last years and recently returned to you in Richmond. That it made its way to me now is a miracle. The stubborn wall inside me melted away, and emotions that were trapped behind it have poured forth, unrelentingly.
My darling Evie. I have loved you since the first time you threw rocks at the pigeons on my lawn, pigtails flying. I loved you when you beat me at cards, and raced me on horseback, and read poetry by candlelight while your brother and I listened on, mesmerised by the cadence of your voice. And now I love the woman you have become—full of laughter and hope, yearning to make her mark on the world.
When Hopper said you were to marry him, I felt as if a black curtain had fallen and the only cord tethering me to this wretched, God-forsaken earth was gone. Like a fool, I believed him, and now I may lose you. My bull-headed behaviour may have cost me everything. I should have known you could never love a man like Hopper. You are too pure of heart, too intelligent for him. Too beautiful. Will you ever forgive me? After all that Shakespeare I was nothing but a foolish Romeo.
This war has changed me. You have changed me—opened my eyes to the beauty left in the world, to the hope that pulses deeply inside us, come what may. You’ve opened my eyes to the honour in bringing truth to others, and sharing who we are for some greater purpose. Most of all, you have shown me how to love.
Fight, my darling! Please, Evie, you have to fight with all your strength. I fought as you commanded, now it is your turn. Fight! I don’t know how to go on without you. Give us a chance to take flight, my love, like your soaring birds. I will be here, waiting for you on the other side.
With all my heart,
Tom
November 11, 1918 at 11:00 A.M.
Armistice Day
“At eleven o’clock this morning came to an end the cruellest and most terrible War that has ever scourged mankind. I hope we may say that thus, this fateful morning, came to an end all wars.”
—Prime Minister David Lloyd George
Paris
24th December, 1968
Christmas Eve.
It was always her favourite day of the season. She loved the anticipation—the promise of things to come—of what might be.
I think of us that second Christmas after the war ended. Christmas 1919. Together at the top of the Eiffel Tower, just as Evie had always dreamed we would be. Of course, she had always imagined Will and Alice would be with us. Will, we remembered as we looked at the stars glittering back against the Seine. Alice, we wished good luck for the impending birth of her first child.
Evie said it was perfect at the top of the tower that evening with the snow falling around us, although I complained bitterly of the cold. She only laughed and took me for vin chaud to warm me. It wasn’t the wine that warmed me though. It was being with her, watching her, loving her.
That was when I asked her to be my wife. She said yes before I’d hardly got the words out. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
I cross the bedroom to look out of the window, see the tower again. With each step, I wince. My joints protest, my lungs rasp against their disease, and my will has all but drained from my body. There’s no enjoyment now of the little things to which I looked forward always. A pile of crisp newspapers, fresh from the press; the way the sun streaks the horizon with fire before it slumps to bed; the chatter of songbirds while I savour my first cup of tea in the morning. It has all dulled. I want to join her, forever, the way it should be.
I feast my eyes on the skyline, absorbing it one last time before I close the bedroom door and pull the crinkled envelope from my pocket.
Moving to the mirror, I peer into it and study the lines of my face—a road map of happiness and pain with only one destination remaining. With a steady hand, I pull on my British Army uniform jacket, musty from disuse but somehow as familiar as my own skin. Once each button is clasped, I don my cap. For a moment, I see a vivid stream of memories, the clatter of war I once worked so hard to suppress. When they fade, there is one image left.
Evie.
Her eyes are filled with mirth, her mouth upturned in a mischievous smile. “Of course I will marry you, Lieutenant Thomas Archibald Harding!”
My heart lurches as I sit on the edge of the bed and clutch her final letter to my chest.
Hands trembling, I open the envelope as carefully as I can and unfold the pages. A faint scent of violet infuses the air around me. It is as if she has walked into the room and settled on the bed beside me. I hear her voice as I read her words, feel her ever nearer.
1st November, 1968
My darling Tom,
How can I ever write these words—my last to you? How can I ever truly tell you what my life has been because of you?
And yet write these words, I must. My time draws closer.
We fell in love through our words, didn’t we? In the harshest and darkest of times, we found the brightest, most beautiful thing of all. We found love. We found each other, and for that I will forever be grateful.
I will never forget the touch of your hand when I came out of my fever. Yours was the first face I saw when I opened my eyes. Yours were the first words I heard. Only Tom Harding could have fought so stubbornly to get through the quarantine lines. And we have dear Rose Blythe to thank for that. You always said the two of us would get on, and I am glad to have called her my friend over the years since.
When I woke and saw you by my bedside, I knew we would never be parted again—and we never have been. Which is why I know you will feel the pain of our separation so acutely. But please know this, my love. I will always walk beside you. I will always be there—watching you, loving you, missing you, waiting for you, and when your time comes, don’t be afraid. I am not. I am ready for the next life and the great adventures we will have together there, for all eternity.
I hope you did as I wished and took this letter to Paris to read. Our last Christmas together there was one of the happiest, wasn’t it? What little we knew then of the challenges the New Year would bring. I am glad we didn’t know it was to be our last. We would have looked at things rather differently then. We would have doubted and questioned every moment—was it happy enough, was it perfect enough—rather than simply enjoying the moment for what it was. And you have given me such wonderful moments, Tom. You have given me the best and happiest life I could ever have wished for.
We are but birds in flight, you and me. Let us catch the thermals together now, and soar.
Merry Christmas, my darling.
Forever yours,
Evie.
XXX
“Merry Christmas, Evie.” My words are a whisper, joining the echoes of laughter and love as the most precious memories of my life dance like snowflakes around me in the room, and the gentle melody of a Christmas carol drifts up from the street below . . .
“Silent night,
Holy night, All is calm, All is bright . . .”
I rest my eyes. Just for a moment.
All is calm.
All is bright.
All is as it should be.
Epilogue
From Delphine to Will Harding, editor of the London Daily Times
February, 1969
Paris
Dear Will,
I hope you are doing well and that you are all finding small ways to cope since your father passed away. I miss him dearly, as I am sure you do, too. Even the Paris apartment feels sad, if that makes sense to you.
It was a lovely funeral, wasn’t it. Richmond illuminated by a perfect winter sun, just as Tom would have wanted, and with plenty of Shakespeare and good literature to see him off. It gives me great comfort to know that he will rest in peace now beside your mother. Tom and Evie, together again. After all those years of separation during the war, how incredible to know they were never parted again. Even at the very end, they were only apart for a matter of weeks. Theirs was a very special sort of love. A model for us all, I daresay.
While your father was in Paris over Christmas, he brought with him a packet of letters—an impressive volume of correspondence between your parents and their friends during the Great War. I had no idea they had written so fervently. Did you? He gave instructions to Margaret for them to be left in my care.
Having read them, I felt I should do more than lock them away in a dusty attic somewhere, and I wondered if the newspaper might be interested in publishing them as an historical series. With your mother having written her column for the paper during wartime, and the reins having being passed down to you from your father, the LDT seems like the right place for their exchanges to be shared. It really does make for a fascinating insight into the war. Some of the more personal sentiments we can, of course, leave out, although I find them wonderfully romantic. Much like your parents!